Mansfield Town maanager Adam Murray calls on fans to help boost home form

John Lomas

Adam Murray is convinced an improvement in home form could be the key to success for Mansfield Town this season – and he is calling on fans to play their part.

Ahead of Monday’s visit of strugglers York City, the Stags boss said: “We have put ourselves in a great position and now is the time to take advantage of that.

“I will be calling on the faithful, especially on Monday, to back us as we are going into a big run of home games now and we feel as a group that if we can get our home form right, there is nothing stopping us from being a successful team this season.

“We need the fans for that. At times the home atmosphere can be a little bit hostile and if we are going to tweak it, performances on the pitch are going to have to to be better.

“We have got to be a little bit more adventurous. We were not going to do it in the first half of the season as would now be sitting 16th or 17th now like a lot of clubs who have had heavy recruitment drives and gone for it at the start of the season. They haven’t got the stability we’ve given our boys.

“So we need to now make this second half of the season the place where we win matches. That comes from my side and comes from the fans’ side. Because if we get that right I believe there is nothing stopping us.”

He added: “I want to establish us as a good League Two side – a team that people looked at with a brand. To look at us as being hard to beat.

“We were relegation favourites so our aim as a team is we don’t need more fire than that.

“We want to prove people wrong. So far we have but it’s only half a job done.”